


How to Be Brave

by arthur_pendragon



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Episode: s02e01 The Curse of Cornelius Sigan, Love Confessions, M/M, Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), POV Second Person, Pining Arthur, Run-On Sentences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-24 07:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20701985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon
Summary: There are tears in Merlin’s eyes, you’re sure, because there’s tears in his voice. You’re not going to think about what that means, not yet. Not now, when he’s both a sorcerer and a friend who might die for you and you’re — you’re simply lying there, faking unconsciousness like a coward to be able to listen to every word of this exchange.Arthur overhears Merlin and Cornelius Sigan’s conversation.(written for the Merlin Canon Fest 2019, episode 201: The Curse of Cornelius Sigan)





	How to Be Brave

**Author's Note:**

> Personal health issues and a very recent bereavement in the family add up to me having been unable to do anything productive at all for a long, long time.
> 
> Mods (or MK if it's just you), you're absolute heroes for letting me shoot past the deadline and post this four days before the fic's supposed to go up.

Listen as your servant — your sorcerer — denies his very self for you.

* * *

“He does not deserve your loyalty,” Cedric shouts at Merlin. Is it really him? Was Cedric not just an arse-licker you hired to take the piss out of Merlin? Was he this wicked all along? “He treats you like a _slave_.”

“That’s not true,” Merlin shouts back, but you heard the catch in his voice, the hesitation before he spoke. It _is_ true, and Merlin is lying to this man. For whose sake? You treat Merlin worse than the caked mud on the heel of your boot.

“He cast you aside without a moment’s thought!”

“That doesn’t matter,” Merlin says, but it _does_. There are tears in Merlin’s eyes, you’re sure, because there’s tears in his voice. You’re not going to think about what that means, not yet. Not now, when he’s both a sorcerer and a friend who might die for you and you’re — you’re simply lying there, faking unconsciousness like a coward to be able to listen to every word of this exchange. It only grows and grows in volume, until Merlin shouts “Better to serve a good man than to rule with an evil one!” and proves himself better than you, selfish prince, could ever be.

Cracking an eye open, you see Cedric crumpling to the stones of the courtyard, a luminous blue mist rushing at Merlin and immobilising him. Your heart seizes in terror: not for yourself, of course, but for Merlin, who incants a spell (the words hurt to hear, formed in his voice), but it is all seemingly in vain. The sound of your servant’s, your _friend’s_ collapse is a sickening thud close to your feet.

A strained silence prolongs the seconds into minutes into hours. You throw all caution to the wind and rise, storming towards Merlin, dragging him up —

“Oi!” Merlin yelps, stumbling into you. “Arthur? What the hell?”

“Are you all right?” you bark at him. “Did Cedric hurt you?” What a stupid question. What does it matter, when you hurt him first? The day began with such childishness, and now, now you’re so close to losing him.

“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” Merlin says, struggling to get rid of the vice-like grip you have on his arm. He fails; you’re never letting go of him again. “Look, Sigan’s soul’s properly back in this thing” — he holds up a massive gem in his other hand, which glows with the colour of the blue mist — “and we can all relax now — ah. Erm. Hang on a minute. How much…” Merlin ventures, “did you see?”

Resolutely ignoring the near-tangible wariness creeping into Merlin’s gaze, you reply shortly. “We’ll discuss that later. First I’m taking you to Gaius.”

“What for?” Merlin seems offensively astonished that you didn’t say _the king_ or _the headsman_.

“You fell to the ground like a sack of bricks. I need him to take a look at your head and make sure it hasn’t become emptier than usual.”

“Hey,” Merlin says, frowning, but you haven’t murdered him on the spot and, indeed, seem to be looking out for him, which is perhaps why he lets you drag him into the castle; why his arm slips and slips from your grasp until it’s his hand that’s clutching yours, tight enough to make your ruddy fingers go bone-white because you’re squeezing back just as hard.

Gaius and the rest are inside the barricaded entrance hall, you discover. When you bang on the double doors and call out your identity, the doors burst open to reveal — not Gaius — your king; no, your _father_.

He seems worried. That has you checking for that mysterious blue mist around him, too. You get one second to perform your once-over before he _embraces_ you — as do all the surviving knights (Geraint, in his apparent guilt at heeding your bloody orders, as good as leaps at you).

You inadvertently let go of Merlin in the chaos. His heavy weight on your arm dissipates even as you curse yourself for the mistake.

When the dust settles and you’ve found yourself covered head to toe in clean rags by a diffident Guinevere, you push yourself up on your elbows and cast about for Merlin. The sorcerous idiot is — still here! — off in a corner with Gaius. Both of them are smiling at each other whilst Merlin shows off the gem he (poorly) hid under his shirt.

Gaius probably knows about Merlin.

It crushes your heart with sorrow, the thought. Not betrayal, you recognise. Sorrow.

You sink back down and close your eyes. Merlin doesn’t seek you out before you fall asleep. If you hadn’t ruined your friendship via Cedric’s appointment, or discovered his secret, all his good deeds in your name, you think he might’ve run a gentle hand over your head and whispered kind words to you. They’d have fallen like snowflakes to rest amongst your flaxen hair, and formed the crown he sees on you during the most… intimate of moments you’ve denied sharing with him.

You want it to be funny: how you’ve always been a priority for everyone but the boy you desperately want to be one for.

It isn’t funny in the least. It’s ironic, as is the fact that possibly the most powerful sorcerer that ever was and will be is your saddle stool. You’re not laughing.

* * *

Merlin hasn’t resumed his job. Been playing truant for over a week. You saw this coming, like a dragon’s fiery maw looming over you, but you couldn’t get up off your arse about it. Coward. The dragon would’ve been preferable to this. Dragons you can slay.

Short of dragging him yourself to your rooms by the (overlarge) ear, you’ve tried every means you know to get him to face you. Your summonses go unanswered. Guinevere says she’ll make him come ’round, but she always looks so shifty when she says it that you never believe her. Gaius tells you Merlin’s out or ill or indisposed whenever you drop by — but of course he’d protect the fool. The knights all go mysteriously quiet when you bring up Merlin’s name. The chambermaids say he’s been severely unhappy for ages, and just how the hell — _why_ the hell — have _they_ been able to behold his countenance whilst you’ve been rotting, languishing alone?

Well, _good_ that he’s unhappy. It’s a thought whose savageness matches the force with which you slam open Merlin’s door.

“Hello, Merlin,” you say pleasantly to the boy and his book (both flew off the side of the bed, at least one in shock). “Feeling better?”

“No,” Merlin says, sniffling weakly as he gets up sans book. He doesn’t raise his empty head. “I’m contagious, get out of here.”

“My health is in tip-top condition, thank you. There’s nothing you can do to me.” You’ve never uttered a lie of this magnitude before.

There’s a tense minute in which neither of you speaks. Then Merlin’s face crumples a bit. “Isn’t there?” he asks, meeting your gaze, acknowledging the untruth. “Isn’t there a wealth of things I could do to you?”

“Yes.” You’ve had over a week to think about this, after all. “But I have had to admit that if my inflicting _Cedric_ upon you couldn’t get you to do any of them —”

Merlin laughs. Unwillingly, but he still laughs. It’s beautiful. The pallor of his skin is overcome by inexorable light.

“I don’t know if I’ve forgiven you yet for that,” he retorts. “The stampeding horses weren’t my fault, you realise.”

“I thought you’d run away,” you say, and it’s clearly not what you wanted to put out into the world but Merlin’s face mirrors the sudden grief on yours and — “I was _certain_. Certain, that all the people I’d asked were hiding the fact from me, and that I’d come here and find nothing and never see you again.”

“Arthur,” Merlin says, bounding to remove the distance between the two of you.

“You idiot,” you choke out, gripping his shoulders tightly enough to break. “Why didn’t you run?” Why did you trust me?

“Who’d polish your boots as badly as I do?” Merlin looks at you. You feel your heart bare itself for him. You wish it were a spell of his making your feelings come to the fore, but you know it isn’t.

“Will you ever forgive me?” you whisper.

“You haven’t actually apologised.” The snark belies the wonder in his eyes. Your hands, insolent and disobedient, go up to cradle his cheeks.

“I’m s—” you begin, but he’s already pulling you in for a kiss and two and three and —

— then you’re spilling into his bed, refusing to separate from each other.

You would take the opportunity to make a snide comment about something or other to even the score, so to speak, but Merlin’s lips are softer than the finest down and the warmth of him breaks you open, keeps you parted, as if you’re his book, waiting for a leisurely perusal.

**Author's Note:**

> You know me, you know what I like to see at the end of any of my fics ;)


End file.
